‘Salvage.’ Saltley repeated the word, staring past me into space. ‘No, I agree. It doesn’t make sense. Do you think he knew what the destination was?’
But I couldn’t answer that, and though he kept on at me, probing in that soft voice, the blue eyes fixed on mine in that disconcerting stare, it wasn’t any good. ‘Oh well,’ he said finally, ‘we’ll just have to accept that he hadn’t been told the ship’s destination.’ He relaxed then, that crooked mouth of his breaking into a smile that made him suddenly human. ‘Sorry. I’ve been pressing you rather hard.’ He took his hands from the file and opened it, but without looking down, his mind elsewhere. Finally he said almost briskly, ‘If we accept your story as correct, then there are certain assumptions that can be made. First, the Aurora B is afloat with a full cargo of oil. Second, since the Omani air search has failed to sight her, she has sailed from the inlet where she has been hiding and is at sea somewhere in the Indian Ocean. The Pakistan airforce also flew a search. Did you know that?’
I shook my head and he tapped the file. ‘A report came in yesterday. Search abandoned, no sighting. Now we come to the main assumption.’ He hesitated. ‘Not so much an assumption as a pure guess, I’m afraid. The Aurora B, you think, is headed for a Euro-
pean port, which means she will pass south of the Cape and head up the Atlantic coast of Africa. We will say, for the purpose of our assumptions, that the Howdo Stranger is well ahead of her — has, in fact, passed the Cape into the Atlantic. Is that your reading of the situation?’
‘It could be anywhere,’ I said guardedly. The man was a lawyer and I wasn’t going to commit myself.
He smiled. ‘The first hi-jack was bungled. That’s your theory, isn’t it? The evidence being the damaged radio room and the crew imprisoned in the chain locker. Incidentally, there’s no report of that man who jumped overboard being found, so we’ll have to presume that he’s dead. They then hi-jacked a second tanker and the operation is successful. They now have two tankers. One is despatched on its mission. The other is to follow when it is crewed-up with what one might call Baldwick’s mercenaries. And since the second one has now sailed it seems obvious that the plan is for a joint operation. That means a rendezvous. You agree?’
I nodded. ‘That’s what I was trying to get out of Choffel.’
‘You said it was the destination you were trying to get out of him — the target in other words.’
‘That and where the two ships were going to meet.’
‘And he said something about salvage.’
‘I think that’s what he said. But he was confused and in pain. I can’t be certain. I was very tired,’
‘Of course.’ There was a moment’s silence, then he said, ‘That’s it then. They’ll meet up somewhere and then they’ll act in concert, the two of them together.’ He leaned back and stretched his arms, yawning to relieve the tension of the half hour he had spent taking me step-by-step through my story. ‘We don’t know where they’ll meet. We don’t know the target or what the motive is. And unless the ships are sighted, or alternatively that man is found alive on the Musandam Peninsula, there’s absolutely nothing to substantiate your quite extraordinary story — and I use the word there in its original and exact meaning.’ He took a slip of paper from the open file and handed it to me. ‘That was posted in the Room at Lloyd’s yesterday. The Times and the Telegraph both carried it this morning on their foreign news pages.’
The slip was a copy of a Reuters report from Muscat referring to rumours emanating from Pakistan that a Russian tanker was concealed on the Omani coast south of the Hormuz Straits. It stated that the airforce, having carried out a thorough search of the coast and of the Arabian Sea adjacent to Oman, had proved the rumours to be quite unfounded.
‘And this came in this morning.’ He handed me another Reuters message datelined Karachi. This referred to me by name as the source of the rumour — a shipwrecked Englishman Trevor Rodin has been repatriated, his story of a tanker concealed in an inlet on the Omani side of the Gulf having been proved incorrect. It is considered possible that Rodin may have had political motives and that his story was intended to damage the friendly relations existing between Pakistan and Oman, and also other countries.
‘I think you may find yourself the focus of a certain amount of official attention,’ he added as I handed it back to him. ‘The whole area is very sensitive.’
Saltley’s warning proved only too accurate. The following day, when I returned from buying some clothes after opening an account at the local bank and paying in the cheque he had given me, Mrs Steinway informed me the police had been asking for me. ‘Haven’t done anything wrong, have you, luv?’ She was a real Eastender, and though she said it jokingly, her eyes watched me suspiciously. ‘Cos if you have, you don’t stay here, you understand?’
They had asked when I would be back, so I was not surprised to have a visit from a plain clothes officer. I think he was Special Branch. He was quite young, one of those shut-faced men who seem to rise quickly in certain branches of the Establishment. He wasn’t interested in what I could tell him about the hidden tanker or about Choffel, it was the political implications that concerned him, his questions based on the assumption that the whole story was a concoction of lies invented to cause trouble. He asked me what my political affiliations were, whether I was a communist. He had checked with the Passport Office that I was the holder of a British passport, but was I a British resident? Was there anybody who knew me well enough to vouch for me? He was a little more relaxed after I had told him I owned a cottage on the cliffs near Land’s End and that my wife had died in the Petros Jupiter explosion. He remembered that and he treated me more like a human being. But he was still suspicious, taking notes of names and addresses and finally leaving with the words, ‘We’ll check it all out and I’ve no doubt we’ll want to have another talk with you. when we’ve completed our enquiries. Meanwhile, you will please notify the police if you change your address or plan to leave the country, and that includes shipping as an officer on board a UK ship. Is that understood?’ And he gave me the address of the local police station and the number to ring. ‘Just so we know where to find you.’
It was dark by the time he left, a cold, frosty night. I put on the anorak I had bought that morning and walked as far as the river. I was feeling isolated and very alone, quite separated from all the people hurrying by. Lights on the far bank were reflected on a flood tide and the sky overhead was clear and full of stars. I tried to tell myself that an individual is always alone, that the companionship of others is only an illusion, making loneliness more bearable. But it’s difficult to convince yourself of that when loneliness really bites. And what about my relationship with Karen? I leaned on the frosted stonework of an old wharf, staring at the dark flowing water and wishing to God there was somebody I could talk to, somebody who knew what it was like to be alone, totally alone.
I was very depressed that evening, staring at the river shivering with cold and watching the tide mark. And then, when I went back to pick up the typescript so that I would have something to read over a meal, Mrs Steinway came out of her back room with the evening paper in her hand. ‘I just been reading about you. It is you, isn’t it?’ she asked, pointing to a paragraph headed: Missing Tanker Man Returned to UK. It was the Reuters story datelined Karachi. ‘No wonder you’ve got the law keeping tabs on you. Is it true about the tanker?’
I laughed and told her I seemed to be about the only one who thought so.
‘They don’t believe you, eh?’ The bold eyes were watching me avidly. ‘Well, can’t say I blame them. It’s a funny sort of story.’ She smiled, the eyes twinkling, the heavy jowls wobbling with delight as she said, ‘Never mind, luv. Maybe there’s one as will. There’s a young woman asked to see you.’